Archives for: November 2004, 27

I've had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Miraculously my son and I both survived the gatherings without gluten accidents. He had a couple close calls, fallen cookies, or food left on the coffee table, but thanks to many eagle eyes, he didn't get any of it to his mouth. The risotto ended up being wonderful, and filled in well for both the stuffing and the mashed potatoes.

My pies turned out well, the crust I used ghee in was the best, and had the most compliant filling: blueberries, fruit-juice sweetened blueberry jam, and arrowroot. The pumpkin pie has soymilk in it (my rice milk didn't survive the trip), and real sugar, and oil in the crust according to the original recipe...it's not as good. Glycerine worked well for the cranberry sauce, just cranberries boiled in a little water, arrowroot, and glycerine. I added the glycerine later, since nobody trusted it as it's not labeled as a food, but it's great with cranberries.

Creamy italian rice dish, adapted to fill the roll of Thanksgiving stuffing, and just as popular.

Ingredients

1/2 cup arborio rice (or short-medium grain rice)

1 or 2 cans of broth, I like chicken broth

1/4 cup olive oil, or enough to cook the onion and celery, and coat the rice

1 onion

4-8 stalks of celery

2 T. sage or poultry seasoning of choice

Salt to taste

pepper or spices to taste (preferably white pepper)

at least 1 tablespoon butter

Directions

Chop the onion and celery as you would for stuffing.

Saute the onion and celery in the olive oil until tender. Heat 1 part broth and 1 part water until hot but not boiling, in a separate pan, if you have a pan with a pour spout, that's good. Add the rice to the oil mixture, stir to coat and cook until it starts popping or becomes more opaque, but don't brown it.

Now, start slowly adding the broth to the rice, this process takes 20 to 30 minutes, depending on how fast you add the broth and how high the heat is. To speed it up, add more broth at a time and use a higher heat, to get it nice and smooth, take your time, put heat on medium, and add about 1/4 cup of broth at a time. Once mixture thickens, add more broth so that it doesn't burn, stir frequently. Keep an eye on it, as you don't want it to dry out. If you add more water at a time, it won't dry out as fast, but won't end up as smooth. Once you've used up one can of broth, or it starts to look good, test it. Keep adding more liquid and cooking until it's tastes done. The goal is Al Dente, like pasta, some like it softer than others, I usually overcook it a bit for the thanksgiving recipe, so it more resembles the softness of stuffing.

After it's done cooking, no sooner, add the butter. This gives it a nice appearance and creamier texture.

Once you get a feel for it, it's quite easy, and you can adapt the recipe in any direction. As long as you have the onions, oil, rice and broth, the rest is up to you. For types that can have dairy, sour cream or cheese is a nice addition.